"Uh, what does sophont mean?" Tommy asked.
"A person," Katelyn murmured. "Something that’s intelligent."
Tommy’s face paled as he realized the implications of [The First Step]. Alistair could feel everyone’s minds racing. They were being asked to kill each other?
"That would explain why they said there’s an over 80% mortality rate." Nathan had a broken look on his face. He was most likely thinking the same as everyone else. Facing imminent death, would they raise their hand to their friends?
Alistair was certain he wouldn’t. He’d rather die than do so, but he had hope there was another way.
"We might be missing something," he said. "If they just wanted us to murder ourselves, why use that specific word? They might send other things at us too."
It was a shot in the dark, but he clung to that hope.
Just as Nathan was about to respond, the world shattered like a piece of glass. It was as though the normal world was an illusion comprised of pieces of broken glass that happened to fit in the right configuration, and then the veil was lifted, and Alistair could see reality for what it really was. His face became attached to the reflection of Nathan’s arm, and up became down as the laws of physics were blatantly violated in front of his eyes.
And then it was gone. Everything turned back to normal as if the psychedelic mind-breaking shattering of reality was nothing more than a powerful reverie. However, it wasn’t the only thing that was gone. His roommates and girlfriend had vanished without a trace.
Alistair panicked, running around looking for clues as to what happened. He checked his status screen, and there was no new info there either.
Then came the waiting. He calmed himself down from his initial panic, rationalizing that they would just come back if he sat still. He convinced himself there was no way that they could be so cruel as to separate people from their companions on top of thrusting such a horrible Quest upon them. The seconds turned to minutes, and the clock kept ticking as no one came running through the door, and no new cracks in reality appeared.
It was thirty minutes before reality set in. In his desperation, he had waited an entire half-hour doing nothing. 4:23:16. The timer’s incessant ticking weighed down heavy on him. He would die if he didn’t complete the quest, never to see his friends again. How could he have wasted so much time?
Yet at the same time he contemplated going outside to complete the Quest, he knew without a doubt he could not bring himself to kill some innocent person. Even to save his own life, he couldn’t do something like that. A thought suddenly popped up in his head. What if he killed someone in self-defense or in self-defense of another person? From the increase in gunshots and sirens, there was definitely a whole lot of carnage going on. He wasn’t a pacifist and felt like he could kill someone who was trying to kill him. He skirted around the morality of purposefully putting himself in a situation where someone would attack him, but he easily rationalized that if someone was going around killing people because of the quest, they had forfeited their right to complain.
With his mind made up, Alistair grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and snuck out the back door of their house.
There was something different in the air. It should have been close to 3 in the morning, but it was as light as dusk with the sky having an evil red tint to it. The moon was mahogany, and he felt an oppressive glare. Large cracks littered the streets. What came out of them was the stuff of nightmares.
Slimy orc-like creatures climbed out of the cracks in the ground. Their skin was red as blood, and they looked about seven feet tall and heavily muscled. Some of them wore armor and carried spears, while others were barely clothed with no weapons at all.
As soon as he spotted the orcs, Alistair quickly got down behind the trunk of the tree in their backyard. It looked like they moved in groups, sending members into houses. From the house across the street, he heard primal screams. He shuddered at the thought of being killed by these monsters
He was about to run in the opposite direction of the group of orcs when he heard a gun fire. An orc dropped dead in the street, and the others turned in the direction of the sound.
There was a man standing fifty feet away in the middle of the road, pointing a handgun at the group of orcs. Alistair thought him incredibly foolish to challenge a group of over a dozen monsters, who all looked far stronger than a human, but he was proved wrong in the next second.
The man sprinted toward the group of orcs, flying faster than anyone Alistair had seen before. Instead of shooting them, he used his gun as a bludgeon, and the first orc he encountered had his skull caved in by a single blow from the man. The other orcs tried to stab him and attack the interloper, but he deftly dodged all of their blows and continued to pistol whip the burly orcs, killing all of them with a single blow of his gun. In under thirty seconds, all of the orcs lay dead on the road, their skulls broken and bleeding.
Alistair could hardly believe his eyes. Was this the result of someone who had leveled up? What did this man do to get so powerful?
He felt a sudden shift in his vision as a screen appeared in front of him.
Name: Jamal Bradley
Species: Human (Unevolved)
Level: 8
There was no information other than that. Alistair presumed that was the man’s name and level. He checked his status screen, finding the previous "None" under the Skills category was replaced with Inspect.
> Skills:
>
> [Inspect] (Tier 1 Skill): Gain insight into your target. Upgradeable (0/3).
>
> How had he already reached level 8? It had only been just over half an hour since their world was initiated. Perhaps he had already developed offensive Skills and maybe even Talents or Badges. Badges seemed to be something like bonuses you could accrue for achievements, and he wondered what Talents could be—he was unable to open his yet. Alistair looked at his Badges page.
>
> Badges:
>
> "Premium Initiate" (Untiered Mythical Badge): The Final Frontier Empire welcomes your planet at the highest level of hospitality. All Attributes +10%.
>
> If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
>
> — Empty Slot —
>
> — Empty Slot —
>
> — Empty Slot —
>
> — Empty Slot —
>
> Increase Badge Slots (0/100)
He noted three things: 1) Things like Skills and Badges had tiers, though "Premium Initiate" was Untiered. It also was unable to be upgraded. 2) It seemed like they also had rarities, reminding Alistair of a trading card game. Common was probably the lowest quality, and Mythical sounded pretty damn good. 3) It was possible to upgrade his skills and even increase his Badge slots, to which he was limited to 5. He speculated leveling up might be how he could do it.
Leveling up was something Alistair was deeply curious about, and he believed he had figured it out. Not like it wasn’t obvious, but clearly, you could become stronger by killing enemies. That must have been why Jamal seemed so confident taking on a dozen orcs with ease. Seeing how strong the man was gave him hope. Just thirty minutes of fighting and seven levels was enough for him to be on the verge of superhuman physical capabilities.
He was going to call out to the man to ask him what he had done, but he stopped himself. That was far too naïve a move. Maybe Jamal had even killed people to level up. He kept watching the man as he bent down to the bodies of the orcs he had just killed.
Cries of fear came from another house across the street, just in front of the bodies of all the orcs. A woman and child ran out of the house with surprising alacrity, being chased by a gigantic orc. It smashed its pig-like head against the door frame, charging after them with sluggish speed.
The orc must have been seven and a half feet tall and was muscled like the most roided-up bodybuilder. His arms had golden bands around them and he wore leather armor clearly of a higher quality than the massacred orcs.
The woman and child ran past Jamal and the orcs, with the level 8 man not paying them any heed. He looked up at the intimidating monster and shook his arms free of orc blood.
Before the orc took a single step towards him, he had chambered and fired his handgun, aiming straight for its head.
With four loud bangs, he fired four times at the monstrosity. Unfortunately for Jamal, it wasn’t enough to stop the orc warrior’s charge. His forehead and cheeks were bleeding, and he staggered each time he was hit, but the creature kept charging at the gunman with reckless abandon.
A brutal fight for supremacy ensued. Perhaps out of bullets, Jamal chose to engage the beast in close-quarters combat, using the same pistol-whipping strategy as before. This orc was clearly tougher and stronger than his brethren. Strikes similar to those that killed his smaller counterparts instantly were shrugged off as he viciously tried to claw at the weaker man. The orc used no weapons, instead relying on brute strength and animal instinct along with his enlarged fingernails.
Alistair activated his [Inspect] Skill on the orc leader.
Name: Jrzz Oduruk
Species: War-Orc (Partially Evolved)
Level: 12
The higher-leveled orc, apparently named Jrzz, was being swarmed with the quick strikes of the armed human. Every second it seemed like he was being slammed in the face or gut, yet he continued charging at the smaller man. In return, Jamal was forced to continue walking backward as he frantically avoided Jrzz’s claws.
Jamal got in ten hits for every one hit of the war-orc, but each of Jrzz’s strikes was far more powerful. Jamal was dripping with blood, his clothing torn to shreds as swipe marks covered his body. There was even a nasty set of four claw marks over his face that was obstructing his vision.
He wasn’t the only one that was injured. While Jamal’s blows were much weaker than the orc, they still added up. It was honestly a gruesome sight. Jrzz’s right jaw was completely destroyed, barely hanging off his face by threads of skin, and his skull was split open and bleeding. He was limping, and his breathing looked pained, which made sense since Jamal had bashed his ribs over and over.
The two were gearing up for one final clash. Alistair couldn’t help but watch from behind his tree with trepidation. It was brutal, but there was something primal about watching them. Even spectacles like MMA matches had rules and would be stopped before they went too far. In front of Alistair was a true life-or-death match between man and beast. Modern man was divorced from fighting with everything on the line, but in this new world, it was going to be necessary again.
Jrzz shuffled backward, gaining some distance from Jamal. He held his arms out with hands open like a wrestler, ready to tackle his prey. He had underestimated the man before him with his reckless charges. He would likely try to end it in one fell swoop.
"You dumbass," Jamal said, flipping his pistol back to the barrel pointing at the orc. "You thought I stopped shooting you because I ran out of bullets?"
He fired a single shot straight at Jrzz’s face, who had realized something was amiss and started charging Jamal. The bullet pierced directly through the war-orc’s destroyed mouth, and he fell to the ground, dead instantly.
Jamal dropped to a knee, laughing in a way that could have been that of a madman or just someone releasing stress. Blood was pooling on the ground at his feet. Alistair knew he shouldn’t stay around him any longer. The likeliest possibility was that he had killed people to level up.
Just when he was about to run in the opposite direction, he noticed the mother and girl who ran by a few minutes ago. They were huddling together on the street, looking at Jamal. What were they still doing around here? Alistair cursed under his breath as he carefully crouched and walked closer to Jamal, making sure to stay behind him.
"Looks like some free levels to me," he said, starting to run after them. With his injuries, he was slowed, but he was still faster than the little girl, who looked to be only four or five years old.
The girl tried running away, but she tripped and fell, screaming and crying, forcing her mother to bend down and try to pick her up, but it was too late. Jamal was already upon them.
Just as he was about to clobber them with his pistol, a large squelching noise came from the side of his neck. Jamal looked down to see a knife plunged right into his throat.
Alistair trembled as he pulled out the knife, letting crimson blood fly free. In one of the stupidest moves of his life, he dropped the knife in shock as his target turned around, a maniacal look on his face.
He was bleeding from practically everywhere on his body, and there was no way he could survive in the long run, but Alistair wasn’t thinking of even ten minutes in the future as he caught the gaze of the man. He either killed Jamal right now, or he died himself.
Jamal lunged at him with an unfettered fury, but even the higher leveled man was starting to feel the impact of severe blood loss. His charge was clumsy and slow, allowing Alistair to sidestep him.
With his very life on the line, Alistair dug in and prepared the strongest punch he had ever delivered. He imagined his girlfriend, his roommates, his family, and everyone he would let down and never see again if he died there. He needed to survive, not just for himself, but for everyone else, too. His will resolved, he felt a tug in his core as he released all of his energy in an uppercut right to the gut of the injured lunatic.
Jamal stumbled back several feet, collapsing to the ground, unmoving.
Alistair fell to his knees in a flood of both physical and mental exhaustion. He had just killed a person. He didn’t feel too bad about it, considering what he would have done to the mother and child who still stood watching him hesitantly, but a life was still a life.
It was then he noticed a rush of energy flowing into his body, and a screen popped into his view.
Level up x6! You are now level 7. +24 free Attribute points.
Badge Acquired: "Good Samaritan" (Tier 1 Uncommon Badge): Put your life on the line for a complete stranger against all odds. All Attributes +3. Upgradeable (0/10).
Quest Complete: [The First Step].
Skill Acquired: [Mana Punch] (Tier 1 Skill): Envelop your fist in condensed mana and strike your enemies. Mana Cost: 10. Upgradeable (0/10).